Which is why there are traits that alter the functionality of those five skills, including dramatic reductions to their cooldown time.
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Which is why there are traits that alter the functionality of those five skills, including dramatic reductions to their cooldown time.
krameriffic
Member
I cannot begin to describe how tired I am of this argument. Go to the Diablo 3 thread if you want to post about the hopelessness of destroying cookie cutter builds in RPG games.
Choosing a predetermined cookie cutter spec is still more freedom than not having any choice at all.
Vigilant Walrus
Member
1) I never said there was tons of choice.
2) I never said there was not being builds made constantly. FOTM yada yada.
Stop being so dramatic - It's been explained hundreds of times now that CD is just instead of the mana. your not tied more into the palystyle than the other. They are basically pause systems. Just like reloading is for a first person shooter.
Even though they are not main skills (utility skills) they are still extremely useful. How the hell is your elite and your heal not part of your main skills? That's a silly thing to say and you know it.
Except that you've got access to 10 of them, in combinations depending on what weapons you equip (in some cases 4 seperate weapons if you dual wield), plus 20 or so utility skills that you're building from, and all of it has to play into the traits you select that synergize with them. You're dense if you think there isn't still complexity, probably even more possibilities than GW1. There'll be FotM, and just like you said there'll be NEW FotMs even years after the fact. The potential for skilled play in this game with the combinations available is huge. Yeah, so what if your 5-10 keys aren't your primary attacks? Those are often the most interesting, distinguishing abilities that a character will have.
Looking through the Ranger and mesmer traits, this isn't so. There's some cooldown on illusion summoning, but its mostly added conditions and damage. The traits system doesn't show much that actually changes a way a build plays. It just makes a particular build stronger.
There's a new yogcast video, too. If you can't get enough english schoolboy squealing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8M-gvfQjdm4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8M-gvfQjdm4
The cinematics blow me away. So damn good.
Some of the voiced dialogue sounds a bit corny though.
Vigilant Walrus
Member
A weird sentiment to have.
At best you will just scare away tons of players. It's a classic that players roll their characters wrong and are permanently fucked (lots of RPG newbies on Xbox got fucked hard this way by Morrowind some years back).
After all, you subscribe to play a specific role. you create your character, who chooses a profession, and that is the role you have. In GW2 you are allowed to pick what tools you want to focus on. It's your own responsibility to change to a rain weapon if your getting kited. Its your own responsibility to heal yourself, to dodge out of harms way. its your own responsibility to change playtype - everyone can potentially do some support and some form of tanking and some form of damage, and they do it in different ways.
I don't see the idea that creating a big pool of quantity over quality, were some skills are forgetable and near useless, and just letting players sit and dig up the good ones from a big pool, is anything other than bloated game design.
Mike O'Brien and James Phinney took inspiration in Magic: The Gathering because the idea that no card was worse than another one, just that everything was good for different things, was a much more interesting model, than having a few spamable uber skills.
If anything we f**king need to denounce rotations in MMO, as they are exactly the thing that is wrong with the genre with regards to combat, IMO!
Human Male and Charr Male are the best, which are Nolan North and Steve Blum respectively.
Maleficence
Member
The squealing is quite rightly annoying, but overall the videos are pretty entertaining for 2 dudes just having a good time. It's not mature commentary ofc, but it is fun.
You made reference to the illusion of choice, which infers that there really wasn't that much choice. I stomped on that idea.
Your elite is on a 180sec CD. It's not going to be used that often. The primary skills you use greatly determine your playstyle. It's not hard to understand. Utility skills have been termed utility for a reason. If you use a utility skill that serves as another evade, then you added another dodge. That still means you're playing the same way. Certain classes like Engineer get more out of their utility with packs. I can't say that for all classes. This is like saying which speed boost skill you used on your Ranger greatly changed your ranger. No, it was all the prep and shot, or trap and pet skills, and combining all of them. Which speed boost you used was just a matter of what boost skill was best at the time.
Agreed, rotation based whack-a-mole is horribly boring and simply not engaging.
For the people that want to see some skills in action:
DailyRushDK Elementalist Skills
DailyRushDK Ranger Skills
DailyRushDK Warrior Skills
DailyRushDK Necromancer Skills
DailyRushDK Mesmer Skills
DailyRushDK Engineer Skills
DailyRushDK Thief Skills
DailyRushDK Guardian Skills
DailyRushDK Elementalist Skills
DailyRushDK Ranger Skills
DailyRushDK Warrior Skills
DailyRushDK Necromancer Skills
DailyRushDK Mesmer Skills
DailyRushDK Engineer Skills
DailyRushDK Thief Skills
DailyRushDK Guardian Skills
Wow I can understand why you were concerned. That would be insane.
Maleficence
Member
WTB English dub
Vigilant Walrus
Member
Flavor of the month exists because, (and maybe I am cynical for thinking this) because people wanna play what works, and what works is based on what is over-balanced at present time. I think perfect balance is impossible, and that is why players flock to what works. It just goes around in circles, until something gets nerfed and people find the next best thing. so what you ended up with was not that many different type of builds being used.
That's at least how I always saw it Team Arena.(I never got comfortable with GvG due to price of admission/time/dedicated guild/fun).
Utility = I dont know all of the utility skills in GW2, but using the 1 elite you have as an example, seems a bit clusterfucked. the Elite has that CD because its very powerful. if it was lower, you wouldnt use your main skills. this makes perfect sense.
The game changes 1-5 based on weapon skills. I don't see the correlation that your utility is not important. Your weapon skills seems to be about being offensive (and can further be improved with traits) -
7-9 skill are utility, and lots of them are AoE buffs/debuffs, stuns, interrupts, and other very useful things. so while not direct damage, it's unfair that say that you dont get a lot of choice there. they are profession skills that are not designed by your weapon: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Utility_skill
Vigilant Walrus
Member
Dailyrush.. It never was that good for reviews and such, but it was one of the hardcore centric pc gaming websites I've ever seen. People used to get banned for talking about consoles. ;D
More like Pyro, Medic, Demoman, AND Engineer.
All your posts have a conflicting foundation of what constitutes builds/roles vs. skill set versatility. An extra set of attack options can not compare to exponential options in creating builds. Most of those builds did indeed cater towards roles but there is no discussion here. The options in GW1 were and will be higher in count.
I'm not going to hammer this point but let me run through a list of monk builds in GW1 for fun. I want to test my memory a bit.
- Offering of Blood Mo/N
- Air of Enchantment Smiter Mo/E
- Restore Condition Prot Mo/x
- Spell-breaker Infuse Mo/x
- Light of Deliverance AoE Mo/x
- Life Bonder Mo/E
- Shield of Deflection Prot Mo/x
- World of Healing Mo/x
- Zealous Benediction Prot Mo/x
- Healing Hands Mo/x
- Healers Boon Mo/x
- Blessed Light Healer Mo/x
- Aura of Faith Healer Mo/x
- Energy Drain Mo/Me
- Mantra of Recall Mo/Me
All of these builds were paired with uniquely delivered skills per expansions. They all played differently and were all meta. Sure, they went over years time. However, LoD, SB/Infuse, MoR, HH, ZB, AoE, BIP, etc... monks were very real. And I've only listed popular PvP builds. The options were immense and an absolute ton of skills were utilized. This does not include the choices in secondary skills and weapon set switching.
Which brings things back to GW2. GW2 is moving away from this system. That's just the direction they are choosing. And it involves less complexity and options. To really argue that you are now being given all these new options because you can weapon swap a skill set in along with traits is really nutty. You can praise the system they are delivering but lets not go off the deep end.
The average casting rate per minute is way above GW1 due to spammable skills. And the majority of the weapon bar has been shown to be about mix-ups. Your utility/elite also can have really huge cool-downs. So this will be a game where you are constantly hitting 1 and periodically mixing up attacks along with utility. The addition of dodging, movement, underwater, adds complexity/choice to the solitary build choices. Many will favor this however you are losing depth regarding those build choices.
All of this comes down to what you like, what you prefer. So let's try to can the GW1/GW2 crusades which make no sense.
I know I'm a bit late responding to this, but while there were plenty of good responses, I didn't see any mention of my particular point. It also touches on the current discussion about Flavor of the Month and builds.
Something else that bears considering; there's a LOT going on in Guild Wars 2 than the average MMO or Guild Wars 1. You need to be;
I think the fact that the 1-5 keys are predetermined is a good thing because you have so much more you need to be worrying about in GW2 vs. past games, and those things are much more interesting than slotting icons into a grid. You will never have a time where you're re-learning what your skill assignments are or spending time re-assigning them every time you pick up new equipment or want to try a new strategy. And yes, I know, it's not terribly hard to re-learn them, but with this approach it's one less thing to worry about in a game that wants you to worry about lots of new, different things.
Once you spend a little time with your profession, you can rely on instinct for the rest of the game and ANet can build content that's more about fun, interesting things than picking new skills.
To touch on the current thread of discussion; instead of spending their time researching or testing builds, players can instead focus on learning how to play the less math-y parts of the game; dodging, positioning, observation, strategy. Instead of bringing along players who are able to research which build is best (and be comfortable taking it as gospel), players can instead be rewarded and singled out for making good decisions and being skillful players.
I know a lot of people like the theorycrafting and meta-game of researching and testing new builds; being a long-time fan of Magic: The Gathering, I can totally understand and appreciate the fun in 'deck-building'. But I also know that a lot of people don't like that, and I count myself among them in this particular instance.
Something else that bears considering; there's a LOT going on in Guild Wars 2 than the average MMO or Guild Wars 1. You need to be;
- Watching the battlefield for changing situations (downed players, adds, traps etc.)
- Watching enemies to predict attacks in order to dodge or use a defensive skill.
- Watching what other players are doing to unleash combos.
- Keeping an eye on dynamic events (quest progress, objective status)
I think the fact that the 1-5 keys are predetermined is a good thing because you have so much more you need to be worrying about in GW2 vs. past games, and those things are much more interesting than slotting icons into a grid. You will never have a time where you're re-learning what your skill assignments are or spending time re-assigning them every time you pick up new equipment or want to try a new strategy. And yes, I know, it's not terribly hard to re-learn them, but with this approach it's one less thing to worry about in a game that wants you to worry about lots of new, different things.
Once you spend a little time with your profession, you can rely on instinct for the rest of the game and ANet can build content that's more about fun, interesting things than picking new skills.
To touch on the current thread of discussion; instead of spending their time researching or testing builds, players can instead focus on learning how to play the less math-y parts of the game; dodging, positioning, observation, strategy. Instead of bringing along players who are able to research which build is best (and be comfortable taking it as gospel), players can instead be rewarded and singled out for making good decisions and being skillful players.
I know a lot of people like the theorycrafting and meta-game of researching and testing new builds; being a long-time fan of Magic: The Gathering, I can totally understand and appreciate the fun in 'deck-building'. But I also know that a lot of people don't like that, and I count myself among them in this particular instance.
It's a tradeoff since Anet wants to move away from static cooldown watching. There are builds that, will creative in the context of GW1, would not work very well in a dynamic combat environment like what GW2 is trying to deliver.
It's unfortunate but I can see why they needed to "dumb down" build synergy.
It's unfortunate but I can see why they needed to "dumb down" build synergy.
I wasn't fast enough! It was taken down.
Where you see the game as 'dumbed down', I see it as one particular (and despite vocal claims to the contrary, not very popular) facet of the game simplified to make room for more interesting things (see my post above). I think it's unfair to say that GW2 has been 'dumbed down' when clearly, there's more going on in combat that all players need to be aware of than any MMO to date.
What it boils down to is making a choice between combat that requires more game-like skills vs. something much more cerebral. There are already a ton of games out there that require players to theorycraft, calculate, research and test builds (or forces players who just want to play to copy builds), but how many are there that play the way Guild Wars 2 appears to?
That is a concise assessment. People are getting thrown off talking about options. GW2 will simply NOT have as many play-style options. But that isn't the point at all. GW2 is changing things dramatically. Complexity is now being offset with new implementations. Dodging, self-preservation, downed state, weapon swapping, underwater combat, etc... Therefore, the options are less regarding variety in gameplay. However, the player options are more due to the expansion of 3d space abilities.
So if you want to compare build wars, save your breath. The traits system and weapon swapping are not in the same category as the GW1 flood of different combinations. And there are fair points that your healing skill and elite really take things down a notch. But your in-game options are expanded. GW1 required you to watch enemy lines, health bars, positioning of your own line, the environment etc... GW2 though has more play-depth with additions that negate and exceed GW1's 3d space abilities.
So again, which do you prefer? A shit ton of options before a fight leading to more unique experiences? Or a shit ton of options during the fight which are more reflex based? Maybe a bit more brawn over brain to some degree but still a viable system for people to enjoy.
He's not wrong though. GW2 is being dumbed down in many regards. But see my write-up above for what offsets this choice.
However, I will highly disagree with the more going on argument. GW1 had roles that involved insane multi-tasking on a level that GW2 will likely not achieve.
Maleficence
Member
Completely agreed, though not a slight on GW1, other MMOs have a tendency to overload you on your abilities and make the game more about watching your skill bar and the UI rather than what's going on in the game, GW2 goes further than any MMO before it to ensure that's no longer happening.
Yeah. If this new skill system is what I have to get used to in order to also have dodging, jumping etc... I'll gladly make that adjustment. GW1's skill system worked for that game, but in that game you barely moved at all in combat, which I found boring
after 1700+ hours mind you
Actually I'd say this was definitely a problem in GW1 and made for mundane/boring gameplay at times. There was definitely way more attention payed to health/energy bars and skill recharges. You barely had to look at the actual battle.
I'm guessing you didn't play PvP. If you didn't constantly keep your head on a swivel, you were dead.
I didn't say GW2 itself was being dumbed down, I was only talking about skill choices. Where GW1 skill builds were often compared to card games like Magic, GW2 is emphasizing space and positioning, like with physical board game. Which is why they reduced skill interaction complexity, otherwise the player would be overwhelmed.
Maleficence
Member
Suppose you're right, only meant that because you were more limited in skill slots you could get a rhythm going and not have to worry too much about a crazy number of skills. So I suppose it was still an issue, just less of one.
I actually love that they're getting rid of mana/energy because of how a unique concept it is. It's tradition that in an RPG you must have some kind of pool of energy or mana to expend to use abilities, but taking that away completely will certainly make for more unique gameplay.
Quadrophenic
Member
What was the youtube video of? It got taken down pretty quick D:
Exactly. I was editing my post when you quoted it and the addition I made mirrors what you've said here. It goes a little further though, in that there's already plenty of games that use the ''pick your options before a fight" method, but very few (and none of AAA quality) that offer more of the reflex-based approach.
I don't think there's necessarily more or less going on, just different things. GW1 was big on resource and skill management, which are both sort of mechanical/math and UI-driven, whereas GW2 is putting that focus more on more action/game-like elements like situational awareness, positioning and twitch. It's harder to quantify those kind of things as well.
It's still too early to tell so we'll once again have to wait and see.
GoldenChicken
Member
Intro character cinematics. I guess there was something wrong with audio (sounded fine to me though). He already reuploaded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytXHJyzVGOw
Its the same video that he uploaded a few moments ago:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytXHJyzVGOw
Dunno why he removed it.
a secret-boss
Banned
OP needs to be updated with these vids
I'll add a playlist.
Put in the OP the warrior video as first one, then the playlist, this need to be seen first by everyone
/http://www.jeuxonline.info/actualite/34488/guild-wars-2-exploration-evenements-dynamiques
Vigilant Walrus
Member
I don't pretend to understand GW2 as I have not played it to completion. and unlocked all the skills, but John Peters commented on this subject a while back at Pax:
Jon Peters;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4xQITFhYAU&feature=related (16:15)
And IMO that makes a lot of sense to what we have talked about. It's not fair to post big list of all the builds that were ever relevant or were used for very specific things. Some "builds" are near identical outside of having added or missing a rez skill.
You know, even if you were right, one of the biggest grips with GW1 was always the little amount of animations/sounds and differentiation between all the skills. It was quantity over quality in a big sense.
The thing I will miss from GW1 (I presume) is the skill hunting. But I am not going to miss bloated skills that look like carbon copy versions of each other, with a lot of them only being relevant in very special scenarios or under very special conditioning. I never liked theory crafting, I liked playing. In practiallity GW1 had lots of skills most people would never use. I just didn't see the point, when so much more "oumpf" could be added to a lower amount of skills to make them more satisfying to use, instead of making over a thousands, with relatively few noteworthy ones.
And I do think it will be much more proactive, to give so many more tools at once for the player to deal with the situation, than having them create and prepare some build before they go into battle.
Yogcast Charr part 3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sb4H...xt=C370a035UDOEgsToPDskI8iE7rb-4JUjABEINlHTzO
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sb4H...xt=C370a035UDOEgsToPDskI8iE7rb-4JUjABEINlHTzO
We've seen the quote above. The combination number might be high but the effects range is way lower. It is much more of a "tweak" system then GW1 had with its various builds. Like 10%+ vs. a build that plays entirely different then any other in the game. Not really a good comparison.
That's not correct and why I went out of my way to say otherwise. Even if skills such as reversal of fortune were on almost all bars, doesn't mean the build types didn't change the entire way you used it. However, there was a huge range of usable skills on all monk bars.
That is a fair criticism. However, if we went skill by skill (which we aren't) you would be surprised how many skills had some use.
You have to remember that in PvP especially, execution was anything but automatic. In high level play, you just couldn't miss an opportunity or screw up your casting order. It was a game of any little mistake leading towards an entire match loss. And the weight was always on all 8 people. The difference now is that the execution is more adaptive in GW2.
I always find ANet's comments on complexity and their skill changes to equate to "We think our players are dumber than they actually are." I know I wasn't bringing Crushing Blow without a KD in my early Warrior days.
I am extra frustrated because I'm a Mesmer player and they really changed the class. I'm not sure what's unique about it now, and beyond them dumbing the game down to the point where a Mesmer couldn't be a Mesmer, the idea of a control class being hogtied to AI Illusions is so inherently problematic that I'm surprised ANet went with it. I expect smart choices made by them.
I'm sure someone at ANet has a BS spin on this, but I'd love to take them to task on this. The concept is flawed by its design. The only way to get around it is to increase illusion health, make them not take aoe damage or other workarounds. Att hat point, you're just fiddling with a system to make it not wonk when you should be making a new system.
I am extra frustrated because I'm a Mesmer player and they really changed the class. I'm not sure what's unique about it now, and beyond them dumbing the game down to the point where a Mesmer couldn't be a Mesmer, the idea of a control class being hogtied to AI Illusions is so inherently problematic that I'm surprised ANet went with it. I expect smart choices made by them.
I'm sure someone at ANet has a BS spin on this, but I'd love to take them to task on this. The concept is flawed by its design. The only way to get around it is to increase illusion health, make them not take aoe damage or other workarounds. Att hat point, you're just fiddling with a system to make it not wonk when you should be making a new system.
I know they talked about this somewhere, and maybe they are right about people being dumb. Looking at all the press videos barely anyone used combat to its fullest.
Vigilant Walrus
Member
There is no way to actually say that with confidence before having played the game extensively.
I don't think having skills were the only difference is the condition or small marginal differences in energy/cd, has legit merit as being called "entire different". That includes the 10%. Those always seemed like buffs to me.
You also need to remember that is skills within skills in GW2 - A thief gets completely new skills by stealing weapons from enemies, a warrior gets 5 new combat skills from equipping himself with a banner standard, and so on and so forth.
Barely anyone is an understatement...1 person has from all that I've seen.
Vigilant Walrus
Member
And yet you'll still most likely play the game anyways. Suck it up.
nope, the designers are retarded. the person who judges through youtube knows more about the game. in fact, the players can design a much better game than those assholes. they just don't want to because, they like don't wanna do that because.. like they need to do other stuff that day.
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